Just created a Windows 2008/32bit VM. Not sure how the SolarWinds.Storage.Agent.exe process got installed but it's there and eating up a lot of Processor. Is that normal? It uses upwards of 50% when there is work being done on the server (i.e. database transfers, file transfers, etc). When idle it is around 26%

Not sure we even need it but the owner of the server wants to resolve the high processor utilization rate. Any ideas? It looks like it is associated with Storage Manager.

The Storage.Manager.Agent.exe is a service executable that is part of the Storage Manager Agent or Proxy Agent definition. It's used to collect statistical data from a single server, we used an a proxy agent to run other Storage Manager jobs, or to enumerate Windows Shares and file information when dealing with SMB Shares.

Within Storage Manager, do you not see this Agent as reporting back to the central server?

I'm assuming you're using this VM as a proxy agent since there's usually not a reason to place an server agent on a VM directly. What else is this agent monitoring? Can you post a screenshot of the relevant agent from the STM Health Status page?

I read in your case that you are running a very old unsupported version of Storage Manager. I would highly recommend that you upgrade your Storage Manager server to 5.7.2 as we've made significant changes to the product since the version you are running including giving you better visibility into what is driving load on the Storage Manager Server and individual Proxy Agents (the previously reference STM Health Status page).

You will need to run an upgrade from 5.1 to 5.3.3 and then to 5.7.2. You cannot upgrade from 5.1 to 5.7.2 in a single upgrade.

STM Proxy Agents are the same bits as STM Server Agents, its just a matter of how they are used. You can consider them as remote pollers used to offload monitoring of the environment from the main STM Server or to help with geographically dispersed deployments where you need polling in datacenters remote from the main STM Server. There is no reason to put a STM Agent on a VM to act as purely a Server Agent (i.e. watching just the VM on which it is installed), which means it is is likely being used as a Proxy Agent. My guess is what you are seeing is load on that poller commensurate with the tasks you've assigned it to poll other entities on behalf of STM. It would be good to know what that load is in terms of # of SAN's (including a breakdown on LUNs/disks of those SAN's) and/or VM's and FC switches.

Looking back on the beginning of this thread, you said "I'm not sure why we even need it" - Are you the primary STM admin? They may be able to tell you why they set it up that way. There are alternative means to determine what is assigned to the proxy agent, for example, by going to the Device Collection Status Report (I think that was there in 5.1, but not 100%). The STM Health Status page will definitely give you this information in a way that it more easily digestible.

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